4 Ways to Reduce Inventory Replenishment Time to Increase Sales and Profits

3. Manage by exception. The 80/20 rule is nearly always true. The top 20 percent of your problem items will typically address 80 percent of your inventory problems. Your time is a fixed constraint. The faster you can review and address the biggest problem items, the greater impact you'll have on improving sales, gross margin and cash flow. It’s fairly simple to provide product-level exception reports ranking your highest under- and over-bought items to focus your time on the most important areas.

4. Decide before the weekend. Whenever possible, make decisions before a weekend. Suppliers and freight companies work on your weekend. Waiting to make a decision until Monday can inhibit your ability to cancel a purchase order, expedite delivery or obtain supplier acceptance of your order. What seems like waiting one day, from Friday to Monday, can translate to weeks of delivery time.

These are all fairly simple processes, but given the importance of inventory to sales and profits, their benefit to your business can be huge.